C'Thun
thumb|The Eye of C'Thun - Phase 1 thumb|The central body of C'Thun - Phase 2 C'Thun (pronounced "Ka-thoon" or "Kuh-thoon" according to Blizzard) is the final boss in the Temple of Ahn'Qiraj. ---- General Old Gods are known to be among the most powerful beings that ever walked Azeroth. No one knows their true names or nature. All that is known is that there were five of them. The young world was theirs and they ruled it as they pleased. Azeroth was overwhelmed by elemental storms and Old Gods held tyranny over it. When the Titans came, millennia, eons passed during fights against the five Old Gods. One was killed, his head lying on the northwestern shore of Kalimdor in Darkshore; others were defeated. Three were weakened (although still powerful beyond mortal comprehension), while one, C'Thun fell into the barren lands of Silithus. Fell, but didn't die. For countless ages, C'Thun would sleep and watch as races evolved, fought each other, saw invasion of the Legion and still, created plans for future - his future. In the desert into which he fell, C'Thun found primitive life-forms known as the Silithid. The Old God created avatars from the Silithid in his own image. These avatars were to be known as the Aqir, a sentient race that would occupy Silithus. The great fortress city of Ahn'Qiraj was created to house their growing armies and prepare for the coming of C'Thun. From in-game texts: :The Gurubashi and Amani [Troll] empires had little love for one another, but rarely warred against each other. At the time, their greatest common enemy was a third empire - the civilization of Azi Aqir. The Aqir were intelligent insectoids who ruled the lands of the far west. These clever insectoids were greatly expansionistic and incredibly evil. The Aqir were obsessed with eradicating all non-insect life from the fields of Kalimdor. :The trolls fought them for many thousands of years, but never succeeded in winning a true victory over the Aqir. Eventually, due to the troll's persistence, the Aqiri kingdom split in half as its citizens fled to separate colonies in the far northern and souther regions of the continent. '' :''Two Aqiri city-states emerged - Azjol-Nerub in the northern wastes, and Ahn'Qiraj in the southern desert. Though the trolls suspected that there were other Aqiri colonies beneath Kalimdor, their existence was never verified. Centuries later the Qiraji waged a war against the Night Elves and the dragons, to claim territory for the glorious and cataclysmic arrival of C'Thun. To prevent the invasion, Ahn'Qiraj was sealed with Scarab Dais by the dragons. For thousands of years, the Qiraji worked restlessly to bring back the true physical form of C'Thun. Now, the Scarab Dais has been opened, and the War of the Shifting Sands will reach its conclusion. Rumors circulate that C'Thun is present here with his great, horrifying lidless Eye, surrounded by a sea of tentacles and will vaporize every ignorant mortal who thinks of daring to challenge his supreme power and right to the world of Azeroth. Cthulu The name C'thun bears a resemblance to Cthulhu of H.P. Lovecraft's novels of the Cthulhu Mythos. Another striking resemblance exists between the name C'thun and the C'tan from the Warhammer 40K universe. It is likely that the words C'thun, Cthulhu and C'tan are all derived from the Greek word Chthonios (Xθωνιος), which means earth (specifically the interior of the earth, rather than the surface). Although there was no specific god named Chthon in Greek mythology, there were numerous Cthonic cults during the classical era. The word Chthonic (sometimes spelt Cthonic) itself is still used to refer to the underworld (being an underground realm, as opposed to Hell or Hades). It seems possible that Blizzard, Lovecraft and Games Workshop adapted the word for their own uses. Strategy Phase 1 The initial phase of the C'thun encounter, characterized by an alternation between the Eye shooting Eye Beams for 50 seconds followed by 35 seconds of Dark Glare (detailed below) as well as periodic spawning of mind flay eyes and claw tentacles. ;Eye Beam (Green beam) 2625 - 3375 Nature damage. Eye of C'thun casts one every 3 seconds, if other players are standing close (within roughly ten yards) the beam will jump to that person and deal double the damage it dealt to its previous target. This repeats indefinitely until the number of targets within range that remain unafflicted is exhausted, so spreading out is key. The initial target is completely random, and the eye will roll around to face its target. This ability can be resisted, up to 100%. Example result of eye beam hitting in the center of the raid : http://retributionguild.net/img/20022006/cthundmg.jpg ;Dark glare (Red beam) thumb|The Eye of C'thun casting Dark Glare 43750-56250 Shadow damage on any player who passes through the beam, which appears red and extends radially out from C'thun during the "red phase" of stage 1, where the eye, appearing visibly red, will rotate this beam slowly clockwise or counterclockwise 180 degrees. The initial target is random, but there are signs of where the dark glare will begin, as the eye not only turns red, but a shadowy cloud appears in its pupil shortly before the beam is let loose. http://img205.imageshack.us/img205/6973/attack14aw.jpg ; Eye Tentacles Every 45 seconds eight small eye tentacles will spawn at the edge of the black expanse which seems to house C'thun, knocking back anyone standing within a few yards of their spawn points, equally spaced in a circle around him. These eyes have a mind flay that does 750 damage a tick, but are susceptible to many abilities such as counterspell, deathcoil, distracting shot, gouge or stuns. It is random target. These tentacles have around 2500 health. ; Claw Tentacles These tentacles spawn at random locations within C'thuns room and quite frequently, including (as of patch 1.9.0) inside walls or on top of ledges. Their melee is fairly weak: approximately 200 damage per hit, but they also do a one-time knockback when they are spawned called Ground Rupture for 1350 - 1650 damage. These tentacles have around 1800 health. http://img455.imageshack.us/img455/9839/attack27ww.jpg Phase 2 Begins immediately upon bringing the Eye of C'thun to 0%. During this phase, C'thun has a shield which drastically reduces all damage to almost nothing. In order to bring the shield down and damage him, players must engage the stomach from inside (see details below). ; Eye Tentacles These continue to spawn the same as in phase one, however they now spawn every 30 seconds instead of 45 like phase one. ; Giant Claw Tentacles Every 40 seconds, C'thun will summon a Giant Claw Tentacle at a random person's feet. Anyone on or near the spawn will take 3000-4000 damage from the Ground Rupture that occurs, as well as being knocked away across the room. They melee for about 1500 on a well-geared tank with tier 2 gear. They also have a Thrash ability (two extra attacks), meaning they will one-shot anyone who is not a tank. They have approximately 90,000 HP and there appears to be no cap on the number of tentacles that can be spawned at one time. ; Giant Eye Tentacles One of these will be summoned every 40 seconds like the Giant Claw Tentacles, but they are on a separate timer. They do the same Groun Rupture when they appear, and also melee just as hard. They repeatedly cast the same Eye Beam ability the Eye of C'thun uses in phase one. They have approximately 40,000 HP and, again, there appears to be no cap on the number of tentacles that can be spawned simultaneously. ; Stomach of C'thun The stomach of C'thun is an entirely separate room. Every 10 seconds, a tentacle will emerge and swallow a random person in the raid. You fall from the top of the new room into green water. Upon entering the room, you are given a stacking debuff called Digestive Acid. This does a hefty amount of nature damage. Before 1.10.1, one application was 150 every 3 seconds and stacked to 99. The debuff refreshes itself about 4 seconds. After 20 seconds of being inside the stomach, you will have about 5 debuffs. I don't know what it is exactly at this current moment. You can swim out of it to one of three small landmasses. One portion of land has a blackish circle on it which throws you up out of C'thun and back to the surface. You can use this to exit at any time. However, there are two Flesh Tentacles in the stomach. Killing the Flesh Tentacles weakens C'thun, allowing the physical form to be damaged on the surface. In addition to Digestive Acid, the Flesh Tentacles will also melee you. Flesh Tentacles have roughly 25,000 HP each. Speculations/Unconfirmed Phase 3 "Stage three is the real meat of the fight. After stage two, initially it looked like lag, time essentially stops as a cutscene begins. During this time, you are unable to attack, heal, regenerate mana/health, use items, anything. You are forced to stay where you are as Nozdormu appears in front of you and tells you the story of how C'Thun fell before the might of a Titan. The Titan died in the fight and C'Thun was severely wounded, so in a act of deception, he faked his own death. When C'Thun began to corrupt the Silithid, he decided to split up the insectoids and migrate with some of them to Azjol-Nerub. With great effort, C'Thun created a physical being that would appear identical to C'Thun, yet have only a fraction of his power. C'Thun, meanwhile, hid in Azjol-Nerub with the rest of the Silithid, known as Nerubians. As Nozdormu explains this, he shows you the corpse of the Titan that fell C'Thun and grants you a buff that allows you to weaken C'Thun. Despite this, the encounter is still extremely difficult and stage three has only been attempted once by our guild." - From the WoW forums. Many thanks to Nyquist. *The above post has been identified as fake. Currently, no guilds have passed stage two of C'thun. Hints C'Thun, being an Old God, is currently the strongest boss in World of Warcraft and has not yet been killed. Some hints to kill the Eye of C'thun are that you have to avoid the Dark Glare, avoid getting bunched up so you don't link the (green) Eye Beam and make sure to finish off the Eye Tentacles fast so they don't kill anyone with their Mind Flay. Ability Changes (History) April 19, 2006: 12:10 AM (est): * Lowered the hit points of both Giant Claw Tentacles and Giant Eye Tentacles. * Decreased the damage caused by Ground Rupture, and made the effect resistable. * Significantly decreased the melee damage done by Giant Eye Tentacles. In the 1.10.1 patch, we also changed the way that C’thun identifies who is in his stomach. The faction changing debuff that was previously applied will no longer appear, but C’thun’s tentacles should not spawn in the stomach, nor should a player in the stomach be the target of C’thun’s Eye Beam. The combination of these changes should give players more time to damage C'thun instead of dealing with tentacles, and see fewer “unavoidable, random” deaths occur due to Ground Rupture effects." ''-Drysc (Raids and Dungeons Forum)'' Source Category:Lore Characters Category:Instance Characters Category:Bosses